— 2013: 83 workers are buried by a massive landslide at a gold mining site in a mountainous area of Tibet, east of Lhasa, according to Chinese state media.

— 2012: At least 60 people dead after a landslide at a gold mine in a remote corner of northeast Congo.

— 2011: Fifty-two people are feared dead in southwestern Pakistan after a gas explosion deep in a coal mine in Sorange, near Quetta.

— 2010: 29 men are killed in New Zealand's worst mining disaster in decades after a huge gas-fueled explosion deep underground ends hopes of rescuing the South Island coal miners, who were caught in a similar blast five days earlier.

— 2010: 33 miners are rescued after being trapped for 69 days in a gold and copper mine in Chile's northern Atacama desert.